The UK’s Energy and Climate Change Minister, Greg Barker and the Governor of Guangdong (People’s Republic of China), Zhu Xiaodan have signed a statement to continue working collaboratively on low carbon and energy efficiency technology.

The UK’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey, has also been visiting China to re-affirm the UK’s partnership addressing climate change. During his visit Ed Davey signed a memorandum of understanding with Wu XinXiong, Head of the National Energy Administration, on offshore wind power. The UK, which has the largest amount of offshore capacity in the world, and China are to collaborate to make offshore wind a “competitive” low carbon power source. Currently, China is the world’s third largest offshore wind developer after the UK and Denmark. However, China has plans to develop 30GW of offshore wind by the end of the decade which would make it the world’s largest offshore wind market.

The key areas covered by the joint statement on cooperation are:

researching low-carbon technologies;

developing clean energy;

co-operating on green, low-carbon architecture;

promoting clean and energy efficient manufacturing; and

building capacity in low carbon policy making and implementation.

For more information, help or advice please contact Andrew Davison on 0191 211 7950.